Saying Goodbye to a Horse

One of the hardest things in the world is saying goodbye to a pet or animal that you love. I have lost several horses during my life, and each occurrence was something I felt I would never quit hurting over. So much of grief involves the frustration of being helpless to remedy the situation, and when you know there’s nothing you can do to bring your loved one back, it’s hard to find solace in anything.

I turned to writing poetry when I had any kind of strong emotion, and it was an outlet for me to put my thoughts down on paper and feel that those emotions would never die, no matter how much time would pass. I lost a black colt I’d set my heart on when I was just a teenager, and as I stood there in the rain that cold April morning with his face in my hands, I promised him that I would write about him and let him live on through my words. He was put down that day, and in the days that followed, in between crying my eyes out, I wrote a lot of poetry.

To this day, when I read those words over again, it’s as if I never left that spot in my heart. I never got a photograph of that colt, he never lived to see two years old, and the big plans I had for him died that day. But the memories of how strongly I felt at that moment will never die, they’re still living in these poems.